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How to light Natural Coals


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Lemmon wood coals are "ok". But if youre going to buy natural wood
coals, I would suggest olive wood or  nour fingers. You can get coals
like nour if you choose. But those are the best in my opinnion. They
burn hotter than  quick lights, and olive wood coals last the longest.
They used to last me anywhere from4 5 minutes to an hour and a half. 
How do you light? A stove top works fine. Thats how I light all my
coals, even quick lights. A stove top is perfectly safe, gas or
electric burners. A propane grill would work too, if you wanted to
light them outside instead.  And it is worth the extra effort. Nour
fingers last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hours depending on how many
you use.  They dotn add ANY flavor AT ALL to yoru smoke. Hope that
helps.
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Hello Craig. I asked the same question myself at one time and made a burn can for lighting natural coals. I took a large saur kraut can, cleaned it up and removed the label. Next, I punched a few small holes in the bottom and in the side about 1/2 inch up from the base. I simple put my pre-cut coals in it, place it on the electric stove top and have at it. While it's cooking, thi is the time to load your bowl and punch the holes in the foil. After a few short minutes, you will notice a flame across the coals. Just let it keep burning and when the fire subsides, this is about the time to TURN OFF THE BURNER (impotant enough for caps obviously) and remove with long tongs. Enjoy.
ALSO, if you use olive wood coals or NOUR fingers, and feel more of a buzz than normal, discontinue use. You may even have a high heart beat and headache. Most people do well with these olive wood jobs, but there are a few that have a reaction because it is not pure olive wood that goes into them. It is olive "waste" like ground up pits that have been pressed under high heat. Olive wood is to precious a commodity to cut up and sell for smoking, but the pits are so many they are a problem and need to be processed into something. Don't let me scare you from trying this. Most people do fine with them. Just be aware of your body when trying them. The lemon wood is better for me though.
ENJOY,
MR Bubble
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www.hookah-shisha.com offers a coal pan to carry your coals from the
stove to your hookah.  It's $7.95 and it looks like it would be
perfect for carrying lemon wood.  Though,  I haven't tried
the lemon wood,  yet,  but they also carry lemon wood coals
and I've been thinking about trying them.  I also am getting a lot
of charcoal flavor in my smoke,  and it's pissing me off. 
I've got very expensive tobacco from Hookah-Shisha.com  and I'm
not getting the full flavor of the tobacco because of the damn
coals.  I've been using 3Kings coals,  but they add too much
charcoal flavor,  and I can hardly taste the tobacco.  Then I
switched to Golden Coals,  and though it doesn't add a lot of
charcoal flavor,  it does somehow mask the tobacco flavor, 
so that all I'm getting is a bitter tobacco flavor.

I don't know what the answer is,  but it's got to be out there
somewhere.  I thought about using the Hookah Electric Heater from
Hookah-Shisha,  but a couple people on the forum have claimed that
it's a TOTAL waste of money,  that it gets too HOT and burns the
tobacco.

Let us know what you decided to do,  as I'm interested in finding some sort of replacement for these regular coals
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  • 2 weeks later...
Is there any reason not to place them straight on the electric stove?  That's what I've been doing for a year (hopefully not killing myself).  I found the Lemon Wood Coals to be pretty nice, but they didn't burn as well as some of the local ones I've found in mid-east stores.
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OK...
I went and order some Lemon Wood Coals from Social Smoke... Along with an Al-Fakher 5 pack...
I also order some Nour Finger coals (And some more Lemon Wood) from TheHookah.com.
I only got the order from social smoke and tried the Lemon Wood from them...
To Light, I used an small tin can that I took the bottom out of, place a grate in the bottom (Actually about an inch from the bottom) and put it over the stove to light... It took a while to get them glowing red, just enough time to set up my hookah with a bowl of Al-Fakher Coconut.
I place about 5 chunks in the can and light them all up for my session. To start I placed one big chunk and a small chunk on the bowl, then as the session went on I added Coals as normal. Very clean burning and NO funky coal taste what so ever in the smoke.
As for the Coconut... Good flavor right from the start, but faded about half way. The flavor wasn't too string, but gave a real nice coconut aroma in the nose as you smoked.. Still have to try the Cola and melon. And my order from TheHookah should be here tomorrow with the Nour Finger Coals.
-Craig
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One thing I forgot to say is...
The Lemon Woods from Social Smoke hardly make any ash as they burn..
With the Golden coals you seem to get a nice pile of ashes.. but with the natural, there seems to be very little???
Let me know if anyone else is playing with Natural Coals
-Craig
ps... in the above post Change "The flavor wasn't too string" to "The flavor wasn't too [b]strong[/b]"
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To light natural coals,  get The Messermeister Butane Torch at:

www.ChefDepot.net/minitorch.htm

It's the first picture on the page.  I actually ordered the 5th
picture on the page,  but they sent me the Messermeister
instead.  And to tell you the truth,  I couldn't be
happier.  The flame gets SO intensely-hot that my coals are REDHOT
literally within seconds,  about 30 seconds.

Pick this puppy up,  I guarantee you won't be disappointed. 
And be sure to get yourself enough Butane cans.  They're big
cans,  but depending on how often you smoke,  you may want to
get yourself a dozen or so cans.  I bought 20 cans at $5.95
each.  It was WELL worth it 
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Gasoline with coals??? HUH??
With the Nour fingers, which are decent, I put them on my electric coil stove and turn them after a few minutes. Nice and red!
However with a gas stove you need some sort of grilled aparatus.
I made one out of a small tuna can and some coat hanger wire, with some
1/2 inch holes in the bottom for the flames to help. Beware of the can
you use, you don't want anything with a plastic lining. Just a NATURAL
tin.

I will say that the CHINESE (gasp!!) "Majestic" coals in the red bag
are the SUPERIOR "natural" coals. No odor AT ALL and clean burning.

Oh yeah, things are coming to a head regarding the copyright infringement, I'll let you know.
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  • 3 months later...
I just ordered a bag of the Lemon Wood coals from social smoke.  Still waiting for my hookah to arrive...my plan is to place the coal directly on my electric stove and then take them from the stove with tongs directly onto the bowl...
Was thinking of just using a regular plate to hold underneath the coal in case it drops from the tongs....
hoping the lemon wood don't add a flavor to the tobacco, but I heard they don't and they they burn really well.  only question is, do you get ONE side (obviously the side facing the stove) RED hot and then take off or do you sort of "flip" the coal so that it is red hot on all sides?
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All the sides of the coal need to be red, oranga or yellow colored.
Just use the tongs to flip it over. I have found the easiest way for me
to handle the coals is to use a steamer pot. Its the one with holes in
it. 
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I'm going to save everyone here a lot of time, and if you decide you might want that butane torch Mathazar pointed out, a lot of money as well.
Head on over to your local Home Depot in the hand tools section or whatever, and get a BerzOmatic handheld torch. They carry package deals which comes with an autoignition, which is unneccesary. You just buy this puppy which comes with one canister of propane, and a valve which you light with a simple Bic Lighter. If you buy this package, it only costs 12 dollars US, and the a replacement canister of propane is only 2 DOLLARS!! Not that you will need it any time soon, as these puppies will last you HOURS of use.
Best investment I ever made when starting hookah.
[url="http://img154.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img154&image=picture0466hn.jpg"][img]http://img154.exs.cx/img154/5946/picture0466hn.th.jpg[/img][/url]
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There is nothing wrong. Since i have a gas stove i just hate when the
coal falls past the element and I have to cut the stove off, lift up
the top part of the stove to get the damn coal.  It may be easier
using electric. Since i have 3 hookahs and if we have company over
lighting several coals at once is much easier that way. 
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